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Greens welcome much of Government’s legislative programme |
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Thursday, 06 September 2007 |
Much of the Scottish Governmet’s legislative programme, which included 11 Bills which were outlined in the Scottish Parliament by First Minister Alex Salmond yesterday, has been welcomed by the Scottish Greens.
The party, which has a political co-operation agreement with the Government that was signed between the Greens and the SNP after the election, also welcomed the administration's encouragement of consensus and co-operative work across the chamber on areas of common ground.
Robin Harper, Co-Convenor of the Scottish Green Party, said: "We broadly welcome the legislative programme and we look forward to adding to it and scrutinising it in the months to come.
"We particularly welcome the commitment to a climate change bill to drive reductions in climate wrecking gases - despite this taking rather longer than hoped, and we will continue to press for these reductions to be made every single year."
The Greens were critical however, of the ongoing gap between rhetoric and reality illustrated by the Government Programme, citing yesterday's publication of a report by the Government's independent Sustainable Development Commission which was critical of conflicting policy and doubts the compatibility of the National Transport Strategy and Route Development Fund with the aims of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Harper added: "[The] publication of the Sustainable Development Commission's report criticises the lamentable and muddle-headed approach taken by previous administrations, and there are signs that this remains a problem. For example it is unfortunate that the SNP has chosen to fast track a bill [Abolition of Tolled Bridges (Scotland) Bill] which will increase traffic levels which are already at their highest level ever, and that will in turn increase congestion and climate change pollution. This is the kind of contradiction that the major independent report on sustainable development points to today and the SNP will have to face up to these anomalies sooner or later."
Also responding to the publication of the Programme for Scotland, Martin Woodrow, the secretary of the BMA in Scotland, said: “The BMA broadly welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackle health inequalities and to improve the nation’s health. The programme outlines an interesting agenda that touches on a whole range of health issues and we look forward to seeing the detail of each of the proposals.”
Supporting on the proposed Public Health (Scotland) Bill he said it was time this legislation was updated to meet the national and international public health challenges of the 21st century, but added: “During his speech in Parliament, the First Minister, said that there was not always a need to legislate and I would suggest that he should consider this in relation to his proposals for a Local Healthcare Bill. This legislation would introduce direct elections to health boards but it will not improve public engagement or involvement in local service redesign. Instead of wasting valuable NHS resources on these elections, more should be done to strengthen existing public involvement structures and pressure should be brought to bear on the NHS to improve its consultation processes.”
Director of Shelter Scotland, Archie Stoddart, said of the First Minister’s statement: “The Scottish Government said today they believed everyone in Scotland "should be able to have a secure, warm home at a cost they can afford". That's why we urge them to make this a reality for hundreds of thousands of Scots by ensuring they invest enough money through the upcoming comprehensive spending review for 30,000 affordable rented homes.
“We look forward to reading their housing consultation papers and examining their proposals for reform of the social housing sector - but the first challenge must be to deliver more homes on the ground.”
Liz Cameron, the Chief Executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, welcomed Salmond placing of the economy as the number one priority in the Programme for Government.
She added: “We also welcome his statement that much that can be done in the field of economic policy does not require the introduction of new laws, but rather can be effected by other means. Whilst this view may be a consequence of the current parliamentary arithmetic, it nonetheless accords with the business desire for effective and swift action rather than the construction of new, time consuming legislative frameworks.
“The business community looks forward to genuine and meaningful engagement with the Scottish Government and all of Scotland’s Parliamentarians in order to ensure that economic policy is shaped so as to deliver real change for businesses and the wider community.”
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